Reflections and Memories
by Yuki Eturna
Summary: Some years in the future, Chihiro takes time to reflect on her life thus far.


_Hi, everyone! Been quite awhile since I uploaded/updated anything on here! I actually attended the same anime convention this weekend that I won first place in the pre-con fanfic contest with my "Return of Sen" story. They sadly did away with the pre-con contest, so I entered the Iron Fanfic contest. We were given a prompt and tasked with writing a fanfiction based on this in one hour. Out of around twenty-five entries, mine won first place! So I'm gonna go ahead and upload it for you guys and see what you think. Again, keep in mind that I only had an hour to write this, and it was completely handwritten. Everything is unedited from the entry I turned in, save to fix any grammatical errors I may have made and missed._

_The prompt was reflections._

_Disclaimer: I do not own any characters/places original to Spirited Away._

**Reflections and Memories**

"Mommy, up!"

Chihiro smiled as her little boy reached up with chubby arms, obliging by swinging him up in hers. He giggled and tugged at her hair, showing off the tiny teeth he'd finally grown in. She couldn't believe it'd been nearly two years since she'd brought home the tiny bundle.

"Okay, down now." He squirmed until Chihiro rolled her eyes and sat him back down to go play.

"Really, Haku, make up your mind," she mumbled fondly.

She paused a moment, the name bringing a flash of memory: spirits, a steamy bath house, and a boy who wasn't a boy. Moving over to the sink, she started on the dishes she and her son had accumulated that day, wondering how different her life could have been.

When she'd come back from the spirit world, she'd kept it to herself. She knew her parents would never believe her, and she half-feared they would move away, making an important promise impossible to keep. As the years went by, though, and Chihiro got older, there was no sign of the dragon-boy that was her son's namesake.

Reluctantly, because she still had a little hope left, she went off to college and met little Haku's father. The memory startled her out of her reminiscing, and she found herself staring at her reflection among the bubbles.

Shaking her head, she abandoned the dishes for the little table in her smaller dining room. _He abandoned us, too, _she thought. Disappeared when he learned he was going to be a father. A flash of green caught her eye and she turned to watch the summer breeze dance through the grass.

_It was about this time,_ she thought again. _For both of them._ How much different would her life had been if Haku had come back for her? Would she have left behind her parents and the world she knew for the spirit world? Chihiro nodded to herself. They hadn't been very good parents anyway, even before her adventure. She'd have gone with Haku in a heartbeat.

No-face and Bo would have been there for her. _Granny, too,_ she thought fondly. She would have been happy there, helping Lin and the other girls scrub the tubs til they shone, and visiting Kamaji in the boiler room that constantly smelled like a mix of herbs and soot. A small smile lit her face as she remembered more and more.

A child's laugh brought her back to the present once again, and this time she saw her features in their sliding glass door to the backyard. Frowning slightly, she closed the curtain and turned to watch her young son play on the living room carpet. The small smile mad ea quick return. _Well,_ she thought, _if he had come back for me, I never would have had you._ The idea had her scooping the little boy up to hold him close, ruffling his unruly brown hair.

"Mommy, stop! I wanna play!" he half complained, still happy to be held. His mother just squeezed him tighter and tickled his tummy, eliciting a torrent of giggles.

"But mommy wants to play, too," she laughed, putting him down after kissing him on the cheek. He wiped it off dramatically, then reached for her hand.

"Come on, then, Mommy! Let's go outside."

She let him pull her the few feet back to the sliding glass door before she stopped, her free hand half-way to the handle. For some reason, she was reluctant to go out.

"Why don't we go upstairs and play with your trucks?" she asked him with a forced smile. Haku just pouted and tugged on her hand some more.

"But Mommy, we've been inside forever," he whined. "I wanna go out now! Don't you?"

Chihiro relented with a grimace and opened up the door. Haku immediately began dragging her into the swaying grass behind their house. _A blue and white two story,_ she thought absentmindedly upon catching its reflection in her favorite wind-chime. Her childhood home, left to her when her parents retired to the country. So many fond memories there...she hated to leave it.

She shook her head at the errant thought. They were just going outside, it's not like they were running away. Still, the memories kept coming, from her first birthday party with new friends to Haku's first steps. They left behind a warm-yet-bittersweet feeling, which was quickly obscured by her son's immense glee at finally being outside.

"Look at all the trees, Mommy!"

"Mommy, what's that bird?"

"Oooo, come look at this bug!"

Chihiro could barely keep up with the ball of energy disguised as a child. he'd drag her to one corner of the yard only to bound away to the opposite one, impatiently waiting for her to follow. He reminded her of herself at his age, or what her parents said of her toddler self. They said she'd play outside for hours, running them ragged.

That's exactly what Chihiro did with Haku. She didn't tire as quickly as she remembered her parents doing, answering all his awe-filled questions to the best of her ability. _That's a dove, _or _I don't know why trees are so tall, _or _No, you cannot eat a bug to see if it tastes like chicken!_ Every once in awhile, she'd catch little snippets of what she _could_ remember from his age and she'd lose track of what she was doing. Thankfully Haku was there to bring her attention back.

Finally, the sun started to set, and Haku seemed to be getting low on energy. Good timing, too, because Chihiro was running on empty herself. She sat in the grass, with a sleepy child in her lap, and watched as the stars came out in the sky and all around her. She blinked at the odd notion, then smiled as she realized they were fireflies. _So beautiful._ Chihiro stretched and yawned.

"Ready to go in?" She looked down at her boy with a smile.

And found him gone.

Looking wildly around, she caught a flash of his orange shirt before it disappeared into the nearby treeline.

"Haku!" she called, scrambling to follow. The forest seemed much darker and more menacing with the diminished light, bringing up memories of nightmares and times she was scared as a child. She pushed them quickly from her mind, focusing on finding Haku before he got lost. Every few minutes, she'd stop, catch another flash of orange, then go stumbling through the growth again.

She barely noticed where she was when she saw him run down a long tunnel just ahead of her. She paid no mind to the abandoned benches when she emerged from the other side, only to watch Haku run out and over the grassy hill beyond the exit. At the top of the same hill, she watched him cross a dried up stream bed, then trip and fall on the stairs. Chihiro made a mad dash to her boy, tripping herself and scraping her palms before finally scooping up the crying child.

"It's okay," she murmured, "I'm here."

"At last," came a familiar voice from long ago that stopped her cold.

Slowly she looked up, finally realizing where her child had led her. She found herself staring into the green eyes of her beloved dragon-boy.

"Haku?" she whispered. "How?"

The dragon-boy looked as though he hadn't aged a day, but warmth still shone from his eyes, tinged with a little sadness.

"I told you we'd meet again," he told her softly. "I just wish it hadn't been this way."

"What do you mean?" The boy merely pointed. When she turned, the dry bed was now a lake, and in it she saw a familiar scene.

Pouring rain. Her son asleep in the backseat. A downed tree. Her car hitting it and careening off the side of a bridge to the water below. Then, just a reflection of her holding a sleeping boy. She looked up at her friend again, tears on her cheeks.

"Am I...?" she couldn't finish.

He nodded. "You both are. Only spirits can come here. Your visit before was an accident. What you've been through was a reflection of your life, from your memories, to help ease the way." He reached out. "Now it's time to fulfill my promise, and bring you home."

Chihiro clutched her son closer and hesitated only a moment. A comfort settled in her being. Her son, though she was sad his life was cut short, was with her, and so was her dragon. She took Haku's hand, finally feeling whole again for the first time since she let go, so long ago.

_**Author's note:**__ Sorry, I know, I'm a terrible person! n I actually made the judges cry with this, and it wasn't even my original intention to take the plot this way. I was originally only going to have Chihiro be a spirit, and having her son disappear in her arms, but that would have meant that her little boy was now without his mother (and I just couldn't bring myself to do that to her!). The premise behind my idea is that her parents always seemed a bit inattentive to me, and with there being no one in her life besides her son, she'd be perfectly content to rejoin Haku and their friends so long as her son was with her as well, and even if his life had been cut short, at least he was with her and not alone. _


End file.
